further indication that Xbox 360 has 512 MB

[Fafalada]

Right now, when that guy simply made it up out of thin air.

Uhmm, as far as this forum goes, the talk of two separate memory pools has been around for quite some time now. The more recent rumour is the one suggesting GPU would be PC like, ie. happily missing access to the XDR main mem.
Back to the days of real VRam, feels like 1998 all over again...

 

[BOOMEXPLODE]

If PS3 is anything like PS2, there will just be one pool of main memory, along with some memory embedded on the GPU chip.

 

[V3]

I mean GDDR3 in PS3.

 

[London Geezer]

If PS3 is anything like PS2, there will just be one pool of main memory, along with some memory embedded on the GPU chip.

... yeah...

Not to be rude or anything, but i think everyone around here knows the in&outs of all consoles.

That was like saying, If PS3 is anything like PS2, it will have an ON/OFF button.

 

[Acert93]

That was like saying, If PS3 is anything like PS2, it will have an ON/OFF button.

Its going to have an ON/OFF button

 

[London Geezer]

That was like saying, If PS3 is anything like PS2, it will have an ON/OFF button.

Its going to have an ON/OFF button

Well it could have a Brain Waves Pickupper(TM). Just think about your PS3 and it will pick up your brain waves and switch on on its own.

 

[Colourless]

What??? home brew?

The 'homebrew' comment is being taken out of context. It is Team Xecuter that is talking about themselves supporting the 'homebrew community', not Microsoft. If you look at the actual news post you'll see that: http://www.teamxecuter.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=156

 

[nAo]

The more recent rumour is the one suggesting GPU would be PC like, ie. happily missing access to the XDR main mem.

Since modern low cost GPU can access main ram too (via PCIE) it would be even worse than a PC

 

[London Geezer]

Right now, when that guy simply made it up out of thin air.

Uhmm, as far as this forum goes, the talk of two separate memory pools has been around for quite some time now. The more recent rumour is the one suggesting GPU would be PC like, ie. happily missing access to the XDR main mem.
Back to the days of real VRam, feels like 1998 all over again...

Hey next thing you'll hear is that the CPU will have to go through the EE+GS90nm to access main RAM. At 800Mb/s. And GPU won't access it at all, it will all be procedural. All random. All PS3 games will look like blobs of pixels. All Random, but at least you'll know it's doing 1TFLOP.

 

[marconelly!]

I mean GDDR3 in PS3.

Not sure if it'll be GDDR3, but the latest rumors do state there are two memory pools, that GPU has it's own video RAM and can't access the XDR. Is any of that 100% true, (or will it hold true for the final console), I cannot know. However, that same rumor states that the memory distribution is different than what I suggested. I'm really hoping that at elast some part of that rumor will not hold true for the final hardware, and that it will either have UMA + EDRAM or at least a lot more VRAM (maybe even 512MB) compared to main RAM (which IMO could go as low as 64-128MB without influencing the game design in any way).

Right now, when that guy simply made it up out of thin air.

That would not be true. The rumor definitely does not originate from me.

Going first and rushing are two different things. Microsoft have been preparing for Xbox 2 for a long time now, and seem to have spent their time wisely. If Xbox 2 is a success then they clearly won't have gone early.

It's not as cut and dry. They are rushing in the sense that they seem to be killing off Xbox sooner than market wants. If you read up a bit, you'll see that they are having some issues with production and distribution of Xbox, cannot meet the demand, and don't want to ramp up the production of current Xbox because they want to replace it with Xbox 2 as soon as possible.

 

[function]

IMO, balancing the system with 128 MB of main memory and 384 MB of video memory seems somewhat lobsided.

Under Marc's assumption that XDR would cost more then GPU mem, in what way would this be lobsided?

I'm assuming that the CPU couldn't access the graphics memory in the same way as its local memory (that's to say without some cost, or slower). I'm therefore assuming that on top of your OS, engine, and all your none-graphics game world and game state data, you'd want to store lots of hugely complex meshes in there for Cell to work on.

Cramming all that into 128MBs and then having three times as much for textures and framebuffers would seem really odd to me. Perhaps I'm underestimating the flexibily of modern GPUs while overestimating the importance of the Cell CPU. Or perhaps I'm underestimating the ability of these processors to work from and into each others memory pools.

Could you fill me in on anything I'm missing?

It's not as cut and dry. They are rushing in the sense that they seem to be killing off Xbox sooner than market wants. If you read up a bit, you'll see that they are having some issues with production and distribution of Xbox, cannot meet the demand, and don't want to ramp up the production of current Xbox because they want to replace it with Xbox 2 as soon as possible.

Given that MS are coming out this generation with several billion dollars of clear losses, you could possibly argue that the market thinks the Xbox is a failure. Thanks to huge MS subsidies, consumers are still willing to buy the product - which is not necesserily to say MS should particularly want to supply it.

Yeah, I agree that MS want to stop making the Xbox as soon as they can. But even without that, going first is the right thing for MS to in terms of making Xbox 2 a success. Nothing about Xenon is rushed, IMO, but Xbox 1's withdrawl from the market might be considered a different matter. MS have recently confirmed that Xbox 1 will recieve software support into 2007 (at least) but how strong this support will be, and how many units are manufactured next year, is open to speculation.

 

[Megadrive1988]

RAM has always been in short suppy in consoles.


I feel that:



PS1 should have had 8 MB total (4s + 3v + 1a)

N64 should have had 9-10 MB total (unified)

3DO M2 should have had 16 MB (like the commercial / industrial M2s)

Dreamcast should've had at least 56 MB total (32s + 16v + 8a)

PlayStation2 should've had 180 MB total
(128s + 32v + 4edram + 8a + 8ps1-i/o)

Gamecube should've had 180 ~ 256 MB

Xbox1 should've had 256-512 MB


then all nextgen consoles would be into the several GB of RAM


of course, reality differs quiet alot from what we (and devs) want

 

[Pozer]

RAM has always been in short suppy in consoles.


I feel that:



PS1 should have had 8 MB total (4s + 3v + 1a)

N64 should have had 9-10 MB total (unified)

3DO M2 should have had 16 MB (like the commercial / industrial M2s)

Dreamcast should've had at least 56 MB total (32s + 16v + 8a)

PlayStation2 should've had 180 MB total
(128s + 32v + 4edram + 8a + 8ps1-i/o)

Gamecube should've had 180 ~ 256 MB

Xbox1 should've had 256-512 MB


then all nextgen consoles would be into the several GB of RAM


of course, reality differs quiet alot from what we (and devs) want

That could've happened but they would've had NeoGeo like prices. When the XBox was announced most higher end PC's were only running 128 megs of PC100 or PC66 SDRAM which was about the equivelant of 1 gig now. 512 sounds right on track for a next gen system. Sony has always skimped on RAM so Im 80% sure they'll go with 512 also if they launch in early 2006. They can't afford to go 256 because the Xbox games will end up having better looking textures despite Sony having more powerful hardware.

 

[mech]

RAM has always been in short suppy in consoles.


I feel that:



PS1 should have had 8 MB total (4s + 3v + 1a)

N64 should have had 9-10 MB total (unified)

3DO M2 should have had 16 MB (like the commercial / industrial M2s)

Dreamcast should've had at least 56 MB total (32s + 16v + 8a)

PlayStation2 should've had 180 MB total
(128s + 32v + 4edram + 8a + 8ps1-i/o)

Gamecube should've had 180 ~ 256 MB

Xbox1 should've had 256-512 MB


then all nextgen consoles would be into the several GB of RAM


of course, reality differs quiet alot from what we (and devs) want

Hahahaha, you are obsessed with "should have" specs Megadrive... I knew this was your post even before I saw the nick on the left

 

[Megadrive1988]

lol

 

[Fafalada]

Cramming all that into 128MBs and then having three times as much for textures and framebuffers would seem really odd to me.

Current assumption is that GPU will likely do VertexShading as well, so you'd probably want to keep most of your mesh data in GPU memory. Unless there's a way to feed GPU directly.

Or perhaps I'm underestimating the ability of these processors to work from and into each others memory pools.

That's the pending question right now, whether respective units will be able to address more then their local mem.

 

[jvd]

Fafalada I know that diffrent pools have been mentioned before but gdr was never and it makes no sense if sony is producing xdr for the console . Why invest that time in plants and other things when the main bulk of ram will be from a 3rd party ?

 

[BOOMEXPLODE]

If PS3 is anything like PS2, there will just be one pool of main memory, along with some memory embedded on the GPU chip.

... yeah...

Not to be rude or anything, but i think everyone around here knows the in&outs of all consoles.

That was like saying, If PS3 is anything like PS2, it will have an ON/OFF button.

Actually, that would be quite a change, as PS2 does not have an ON/OFF button. There is an ON/OFF switch on the back, and a reset button on the front. But, I guess you already know the the in&outs of all consoles, right?

 

[passerby]

Actually, that would be quite a change, as PS2 does not have an ON/OFF button. There is an ON/OFF switch on the back, and a reset button on the front. But, I guess you already know the the in&outs of all consoles, right?

Amazing that it's actually true - most people don't read the manual. Even when they think 'no ON/OFF button? Weird!', they won't reach out for the manual to find the '100%-I-bet-the-farm-must-be-there' 'how to switch on/off your equipment' section.

Those who don't know what I'm rambling about, DO THAT NOW. Pick up your manual and turn to the 'how to on/off' page.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I wonder how those people who had trouble turning the PS2 off from the front button are even able to play the games. The games are so much more complicated than some simple button after all